—Poems by Ian Lewis Copestick, Stoke on Trent, England
—Anonymous Photos of the Way Cool Beach
—Anonymous Photos of the Way Cool Beach
A BAD DAY
It's days like these when you know
You've been whipped, beaten
Halfway through a 15-rounder
Your legs are like lead
And your eyes can't see
Only in life there's no coach
To throw in the towel
Walking down the drizzly, dreary street
Slapped in the face by the wind and the rain
And the life
Oh yes, the life
It's on days like these when you can
See the future clearly
All too clearly
All you see is poverty and old age
Staring you in the face
Like a double-barrelled shotgun
You see your dreams for
What they are
Nothing
Nothing at all
Complete fantasy
Because if you had to
Really look at life
In all its rotten, stinking glory
You'd go completely insane
And use the carving knife
Or several hundred paracetamol
Or the gram of heroin in one hit
Or the pipe from the exhaust
Or .....
Or .....
Or .....
There are hundreds of these ways to die
And thousands of ways to go insane
But I think this must be the worst
To see it all for what it really is
Relationships a screaming, bawling
Brawling travesty of love
A third of your life wasted
Sweating, hating, cursing your tedious
Muscle-wrenching, low-paid, low-grade job
A third of your life spent hitting the bottle hard
And feeling it hit back harder
Until your insides ache
And your mind becomes numb
Fuzzy around the edges
Like a T.V. with a bad reception
The final third is spent, fitfully
Trying to sleep
To forget
But
The mind-rot seeps slowly
Into dreams, until
The arms of Morpheus
Are not comforting and restful
But smothering
Dragging you into a
Netherworld of nightmares
So
Days like these
Days like these
Days like these
Dragging you into
Depression's icy grip
Yet
When the
Spotty, sweaty, overworked
Teenage staff in McDonald’s
Tell you to
"Have a nice day "
It would be rude and churlish
If you didn't even
Try to
COMING IN
Coming in from a long
Long night at work
Nine-and-a-half hours
Of back-breaking
Brain-aching
Idea-taking
Tedium
Then another hour of
Black coldness
Cold blackness
Standing
Shivering
Swearing
Waiting for busses.
To come into;
Waiting for sleep
Waiting for the aches
And pains to stop
Waiting for the drink
To take hold
Waiting for........
.......Nothing
Cigarette smoke curling and coiling
In the half light
3:30 P.M. WITH A BEER
This is important
Meaningful, necessary
To sit at 3:30 p.m.
With a beer
Dressed in dirty jeans
And an old T-Shirt
No underwear
No socks
No shoes
No worries
Not a thought in my dumb head
My girlfriend is at the hairdresser’s
Getting herself styled
And highlighted
I sit here with three days
Worth of beard
Preparing for the sacrifice
Of another night to the
World of commerce
Another nine-and-a-half hours
Of manual labour
This is important
As important as
Lying cuddled up to my girlfriend
As we talk night into morning
As important, meaningful and
Necessary as that
Or taking our table in a restaurant
Both well dressed
Plenty of cash, plenty of drinks
Gazing at each other
Over the tablecloth
Just knowing that
This is where you want to be
And who you want to be with
As important, meaningful
And necessary as that
Or writing a poem
Your head a whirl
As the words splatter the page
As you get the sheer exhilaration
Of getting your words down
Knowing instinctively
That they are right
That you are saying
What you want to say
What you ought to say
What you need to say
This is just as important
Meaningful and necessary
To sit at 3:30 p.m.
On your third beer
And not a thought
In your dumb head
THE STRANGERS
What's scarier than strangers
And all the things that they don't know
Don't know, don't care and if they did
They'd never let it show
They have no fears, no phobias
No terrors in the night
No doubts, no worries, not even concerns
They always know that they are right
The strangers are the ones in a rowdy crowd
In the lynch mob too
They join the army, even the police
They aren't like me and you
They vote Conservative, own pit bulls
Get involved in, even start pub fights
I've never really known one of them
But I can spot one on sight
These strangers include the rapists
Child molesters too
I even believe in traffic
They are the ones in front of you
They used to buy Phil Collins
Then they bought U2
They put Englebert Humperdinck at Number One
While "Strawberry Fields" got stuck at two
These strangers are so weird and scary
I don't know what to do
Now I never dare go anywhere
In case I become a stranger too
BAR-B-Q
I love the summer
But I have to say
I hate barbecue season
The loud conversations
The drunken laughter
And the smell of cooking
Sausages and burgers
Floating through the window
The loud, cheesy
Dance/pop music
Assaulting my senses
As I sit here alone
With a single bottle
Of fortified wine
As the loud, drunken fools
With their arrogant, manly laughter
Have countless crates and bottles
Ready to be consumed
As I sit here alone
Always the outsider
Scribbling my lines
To console myself
With the idea of "art"
As if it is important
Not to be
Part of the crowd
When the truth is
I was never invited
Anyway
IT’S NOT A BAD LIFE
I wake up slowly
Realise I'm at the beach house
The St. Tropez sun
Bursting through the blinds
A quick dip in the pool
To wake myself up
Then it's into my oak-panelled
Study/Library
With my Havana cigars
And my 20-year-old Scotch
To knock out another
5000 words of
My latest bestseller
As my 21-year-old girlfriend
Tries to tempt me with
Designer lingerie and
Brightly coloured
Cocktails
It's not a bad life
BANG!!!!!!!!
I wake up and
Look around at
The grimy walls
That really need painting
The pile of dirty clothes
At the side of the bed
Roll myself a cigarette
Think......
I've got about £5 in
My bank account
That should get me
A cheap bottle of wine
And an even cheaper
Frozen pizza
I grab a pen and pad
And write down this poem
It's not a bad life
Who knows
Tonight's dream
Might be even better
_____________________
Today's LitteNip:
Fruition—
Think of writing as a harvest.
You till the ground.
Plant.
Water.
Wait.
Apple trees take years to bear fruit.
Harvest.
Clean.
Process.
Then you have apple pie.
—Keelie Breanna
Think of writing as a harvest.
You till the ground.
Plant.
Water.
Wait.
Apple trees take years to bear fruit.
Harvest.
Clean.
Process.
Then you have apple pie.
—Keelie Breanna
___________________
Thanks for the fine poetry, Ian! Ian Lewis Copestick is a 45-year-old poet from Stoke On Trent, England. He is currently unemployed and living on £70 a week dole money. This means that life isn't easy but he has plenty of time to read, think and write. He has been writing poetry for about 17 years, but has only been sending it out for just over a month. In this time he has been published by Anti Heroin Chic, Outlaw Poetry (outlawpoetry.com/2018/four-poems-by-lewis-copestick), The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review and Medusa's Kitchen (7/16/18). For more of his poems, go to hellopoetry.com/u696303/favorites/. Thanks again, Ian, and don't be a stranger!
Thanks for the fine poetry, Ian! Ian Lewis Copestick is a 45-year-old poet from Stoke On Trent, England. He is currently unemployed and living on £70 a week dole money. This means that life isn't easy but he has plenty of time to read, think and write. He has been writing poetry for about 17 years, but has only been sending it out for just over a month. In this time he has been published by Anti Heroin Chic, Outlaw Poetry (outlawpoetry.com/2018/four-poems-by-lewis-copestick), The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review and Medusa's Kitchen (7/16/18). For more of his poems, go to hellopoetry.com/u696303/favorites/. Thanks again, Ian, and don't be a stranger!
—Medusa
Ian and Pal
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